


when you can't rise (i'll crawl with you on hands and knees)

by procrastinatingbookworm



Series: i'm gonna stand by you (even when we're breaking down) [1]
Category: Moana (2016)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Gen, Hair Braiding, Hurt/Comfort, Sea Monsters, but that's the only reassurance i can give you, the violence is brief and not in a lot of detail but it does happen, this is not a death fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-28
Updated: 2017-06-28
Packaged: 2018-11-20 00:19:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,557
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11324745
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/procrastinatingbookworm/pseuds/procrastinatingbookworm
Summary: Maui and Moana face a monster, and lose more than they're prepared to deal with.





	when you can't rise (i'll crawl with you on hands and knees)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [paperjamBipper](https://archiveofourown.org/users/paperjamBipper/gifts).



“Ugh! Wayfinding in the fog. Great! I was definitely looking forward to this. Whee.”

  
Moana wasn’t sure if the dampness or Maui’s frustrated grumbling woke her, but she sat up and realized she couldn’t see anything but the mast and Maui’s tattooed back. His hair was up in a bun, pulled out of his face as he squints through the mist.

“Morning, Curly. Think you can stay away from home for another few hours? It’s not safe to sail in this weather.” Maui was already putting the sail down, his forehead creased worriedly.

“You’re being cautious? Who are you, and what have you done with Maui?” Moana pulled the oar from the water and poked him with it, grinning.

Maui didn’t even look at her. “There’s a difference between being reckless and being an idiot,” he snapped. “And sailing in awful weather is a case of the latter.”

Moana tucked herself under his arm and leaned into his side, resting a hand on the small of his back. She felt the tension go out of him, and he sighed, warrior face shifting into a small, concerned frown.

“You okay, Maui?”

He shifted, like he wasn’t sure whether to melt into her arms or pull away. “I’m just hoping this is natural. There have been a lot of monsters near the islands recently.”

Moana started to reply, but the ocean bubbled around them, and she never got the chance. She hefted her oar instead, lifting it to fight off whatever was approaching. Maui’s arm tightened around her, the knuckles of his other hand going white on the handle of his hook. He was protecting her, but not restricting her movements. It was a practiced motion, a brotherly, even fatherly instinct that ached with memories.

Maui shouted, “down!” and they slammed to the deck, just before the ocean exploded, some multi-limbed thing that arced over their heads and crashed down.

Chaos reigned. Something slammed her into the floor of the canoe, and something else came down on top of it. Maui shrieked a war cry, blue light flashed, and she was free, gripping her oar and covered in blackish monster blood.

As soon as she was on her feet, a barbed tentacle lurched out of the shadows, and Moana slammed her oar into it. From beneath them came a snarl of displeasure, and the boat rocked. Maui leapt to her side and cut the tentacle off, kicking it into the ocean. The boat rocked again, harder, and the monster shrieked.

They stood back to back in the center of the boat, silently and efficiently keeping the tentacles at bay. If Moana had been allowed time to think, she would have marveled at the way they worked together, without a word or a moment of confusion.

Then again, if she had been thinking, she would have noticed how Maui was devoting more energy to making sure she was safe than protecting himself.

The fog thinned slightly, giving them a glimpse of the thing they were fighting, and before Moana could stop him, Maui howled a warcry and leapt into the mist.

All she could do was shout his name, stare after him, and listen.

The sound of his transformation. A splash. The creature’s howl. Another transformation, another monstrous screech. A muffled curse, another splash. The sharp hum of rapid transformations.

A surprised shout. A wet, sickening, awful sound.

A scream of pain and fear and rage that could belong to no one but Maui.

Without hesitating, Moana dove.

The ocean surged up and caught her, pushing her back onto the boat, holding her there.

“No!” she shrieked, fighting it with. “No, let me help him, let me _go_!”

She kicked and struggled, screaming Maui’s name, until the ocean’s head made a sharp gesture of I’ll go and disappeared into the mist.

Helpless, pinned to the boat, Moana could only wait, listening to the waves and the tiny cries of pain that seemed to echo around her.

A shape moved in the mist, and the ocean dragged Maui to the boat, letting Moana go so she could run to his side.

He was still clutching his hook, that was the first thing that registered.

The second thing wasn’t even the blood. It was the asymmetry.

The third thing was the fact that he was calling her name, whimpering and slamming his head back against the boards, teeth gritted in agony.

It wasn’t until Moana was on her knees, one hand on his arm to soothe him, pulling bandages from the storage compartment, that she realized Maui’s leg ended just below his knee, in a ragged stump.

It took until she’d already tied a tourniquet and bandaged up what she could, until the bleeding had stopped (she asked, later, much later, and quick healing was one of the gifts of being a demigod) and the mist was starting to clear for her to realize she was shaking.

A hand grabbed weakly at her wrist, and Maui coughed her name. He dragged himself upright, wrapping his arms around her.

Together, in the silence that only broken by their ragged breathing and the quiet sounds of the ocean, they held on to each other and shook.

 

* * *

  
  
The sun had risen by the time Moana lifted her head from Maui’s shoulder, rubbing at her eyes. The demigod was asleep, clutching her and his hook like lifelines, curled in on himself, the stump of his leg tucked under him. Quietly, she shifted out of his grip, unwinding the bandages. All that was left was an ugly scar.

  
Moana turned the boat towards home.

 

* * *

 

  
  
Her parents helped carry Maui from the boat and to her _fale_. She stayed with him until she was sure he was comfortable, arranging and rearranging the blanket, leaning his hook against the wall in a dozen different positions to make sure it wouldn’t fall, hesitating by his side to see if he would wake up.

He didn’t, and she walked back into the sunlight. Before either of her parents could speak, she explained, in a rush of words, answering her father’s questions in clipped sentences, leaning into the hand her mother rested on her arm, holding herself stiffly so she wouldn't tremble at her own awful words.

She meant to go back to Maui’s side, but someone called her over, and from there she ended up talking to a dozen different people and walking the length of the island, and by the time she made it back to her _fale_ , it was too late.

Maui was awake, sitting up, the blankets thrown to the side, staring at the stump of his leg. His hair, matted with blood and seawater, hid his expression, but not the way his hands and shoulders were shaking.

“Maui?” Moana ventured carefully, crouching beside him.

“I’m ruined.” Maui said, and his voice was broken, shattered, twisted and heavy and honest, defeated.

“No.” Moana said, even before he finished speaking, grabbing his shoulder and shaking him. “No, you're not ruined. You-”

He cut her off, shrugging away her hand and glaring from behind the curtain of tangled hair. “This isn't like my hook, Moana. This isn't something that I can function without. This is part of me. This is all of me. Agility, strength, speed, gone!I’m nothing, now!”

Just when she needed her words the most, they failed her.

Maui slumped down and pulled the blanket over himself. “Leave me alone, Moana.”

Moana stood and left the fale, but she didn't stay away. She husked a coconut and emptied the water into a bowl, found a comb among her mother’s things, picked a few flowers from the patch near the trees.

When she knelt back down, Maui grumbled at her to leave, but she ignored him. Gently, fondly, she washed the blood and salt from his hair, combing it out carefully. She braided the flowers into the lock of hair that always fell from behind his ear, and sat back on her heels, content with her work.  
She took Maui’s hand and guided it to the side of his head. “Good?”

Maui made a raw sound in his throat, and started to shake, every breath a quiet, keening sob that curled him in on himself, a cry of helpless, overwhelmed emotion.  
Moana rubbed his back gently, her voice strong and insistent. “Listen. You’re not ruined. This isn't the end. Every challenge you’ve faced, you've worked through. This is no different.”

The shaking lessened.

“Crippled doesn't mean broken. It just means changed. Something you have to adapt to. You’re Maui, Demigod of the Wind and Sea, Hero to All. Nothing has stopped you before. There’s no reason this should be it. You’re greater than your limits, Maui, so much greater. And nothing can ruin that.”

A long, deafening silence. Maui slowly sat up, rubbing at his eyes.

“Help me stand?” he asked, and Moana got to her feet, slowly helping Maui lift himself on one leg. He closed his eyes, leaned on her, shifted his balance, and lifted his arm from around her.

She grabbed his hook from where it leaned against the wall and handed it to him. He opened his eyes, shifted again, leaned on the hook, looked at Moana, standing beside him with her hand on his arm, watching him in silent, familial adoration, and smiled.


End file.
